BDEhrman, Author at The Bart Ehrman Blog - Page 114 of 204

About BDEhrman

Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has served as the director of graduate studies and chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

Bruce Metzger and Me: Finding a Dissertation

Bruce Metzger, my mentor in graduate school, for both my Master's degree and my PhD, has been invoked a number of times in recent comments on the blog. I thought it might be interesting to repost a few reminiscences I made about my work with him. These come from posts that appeared six years ago -- when most of you weren't on the blog. They will all be on my dissertation. When I entered my PhD program at Princeton Theological Seminary, I knew already that I wanted to specialize in the study of the Greek manuscript tradition of the New Testament. As I indicated in my earlier posts, that’s why I went there, because Metzger was the country’s leading expert in this field, and one could argue the leading expert in the world (some Germans would contest the point!). While doing my Master’s thesis for Metzger I read widely in the secondary literature on textual criticism, and came to be highly influenced by a scholar named Gordon Fee. Fee is an interesting and important figure. [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:58-04:00August 14th, 2018|New Testament Manuscripts, Reflections and Ruminations|

Is 1 Clement Older than Some Books of the New Testament?

This will be my final post on the book of 1 Clement. Now that I’ve summarized what the book is about and said something about its author, I can turn to the original question I was asked, about its date. The time of its writing is an important question, for a reason you might not suspect. It is almost always said – I myself regularly say this, as a kind of simple “short hand,” knowing that it’s probably not literally true, that the books of the New Testament are the “earliest” Christian writings we have. In fact, if, as is often thought, Revelation was written around 95 CE, and 2 Peter around 120, then a couple of other Christian books may have ante-dated them, including 1 Clement and the Didache, two of the apostolic fathers. So too, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch were almost certainly written around 110 CE. So, the big question here is: when did this anonymous author from Rome write the book of 1 Clement? This is how I discuss the [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:58-04:00August 13th, 2018|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Reader’s Questions|

Did a “Pope” Write the First-Century Book of 1 Clement?

I return her to the book of 1 Clement, probably unknown to many people on the blog, but an important work written at about the time of some of some of the writings of the New Testament – or so I’ll b arguing in the post after this. First I need to say something about the author. Why is it attributed to someone named Clement? Could this really have been written by a first-century pope (i.e., the Bishop of the church in Rome)? Again, I am taking this information from the Introduction to the letter, which I give in a new English translation (with the Greek text on the facing page) in the first volume of my Apostolic Fathers in the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press). ************************************************************** The Author of the Book Even though the letter claims to be written by the “church ... residing in Rome,” it has from early times been attributed to Clement, a leader of the Roman church near the end of the first century. In his celebrated church history, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:58-04:00August 12th, 2018|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), History of Christianity (100-300CE)|

The Letter of First Clement: An Overview

I received a request recently about one of the “Apostolic Fathers.” This term does not refer to just any of the post-canonical writers of early Christianity, but to a specific group of ten (or eleven, depending on how you count) authors who were later considered “authoritative” in some sense by proto-orthodox thinkers, but were believed to have been writing after the NT period. They include letters by Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna, and texts called 1 and 2 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, the letter to Diognetus, and the fragments of Papias and Quadratus. This is one of the most understudied corpora of early Christianity, and I’ve been intensely interested in the texts for well over twenty years. About fifteen years ago I produced a new translation of them for the Loeb Classical Library (2 vols., Harvard University Press, 2004), including versions of the Greek (and a bit of Latin) texts, my translation, introductions, and a few notes. Many lay folk have never [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:58-04:00August 10th, 2018|Early Christian Writings (100-400 CE), Reader’s Questions|

Blog Dinner in Durham in September is Full!

Table is full for the Sept. 24 blog dinner in Durham. Many thanks to all responded, and apologies to those who didn't make it this time. There will definitely be a next time!

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:58-04:00August 8th, 2018|Public Forum|

Was Jesus Thought To Be a Miracle Worker in His Own Lifetime?

This is the final, and most important, of my posts on the miracles of Jesus. In it I raise the question – without being able to come to an absolutely definitive answer – of whether Jesus was thought to be a miracle worker already in his life time or if, instead, miracles came to be ascribed to him only later by followers who believed he had been raised from the dead. I incline toward the latter view. To set the stage for and make sense of what I have to say, I include the final comments from the previous post: ********************************************************** In the other two Synoptics there is a different understanding, one that can be seen most clearly in the saying preserved in Matthew 11:2-6. Here we are told that John the Baptist, who is now in prison, has heard about “the deeds of Christ,” and sends some of his disciples to him to ask if he is the one to come at the end of time, or if there is someone else. Jesus replies: [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 8th, 2018|Historical Jesus|

The Message of Jesus’ Miracles

I have been talking about the stories of Jesus' miracles, and am raising the question of whether they necessarily go all the way back to Jesus' lifetime, as tales told while he was still living. I pick up where I left off last time, after showing that Jesus' miracle-working abilities increased with the passing of time. *************************************************************** Not only does Jesus become increasingly miraculous with the passing of time, these miracles are all told in order to make a point. The stories about Jesus as the miraculous Wunderkind reveal that he really was the Son of God endowed with supernatural power straight from the womb; as a five-year old he was already the Lord of life and death; as the resurrected savior he was manifestly a superhuman being of giant proportions. In more general terms, the miracles in our later accounts repeatedly show that Jesus was the spectacular Son of God. He was far superior to all his enemies (even if these were only the aggravating kids down the street). He was more powerful [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 7th, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

Blog Dinners Next Month. Interested?

I would like to host two dinners for anyone on the blog who would like to attend. My idea is to have at least three, but no more than seven, people at each one. This would be a chance for some direct, personal contact with me and with each other, to have some good food, good drink, and good conversation for a couple of hours. I will have no agenda – simply talking about things (presumably related to the issues addressed on the blog) that people want to talk about. The only requirements for attendance would be that (a) you be a blog member; (b) you pay your own way – both getting to the event and your meal itself. Otherwise, there is no expense and no requirements. You don’t even have to feel obliged to say much! After the table is filled, I will put another announcement on the blog; if I don’t get more than a couple of takers then I’ll reschedule it for another time. If you can and want to come, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 6th, 2018|Public Forum|

Is There Sarcasm in the New Testament?

Here is an unusually interesting question I have received: QUESTION: During the time that the New Testament was being written, especially during Paul’s time, did they have in society what we consider sarcasm? Sometimes certain sentences pop out to me as they could have meant them in a sarcastic tone. I know it is probably just me since I am a sarcastic person. RESPONSE: Now *that’s* an interesting question that I, literally, have never been asked before! But it’s something I’ve thought about a bit over the years, and I think the short answer to it is Yes. Let me start by giving a definition of sarcasm. You can find various definitions just on the Internet, but the basic idea is that sarcasm is a form of humor that used irony in order to mock another. It is difficult to identify sarcasm in ancient writings. In fact, as you’ve probably noticed, sometimes it’s hard to know if someone is being sarcastic when they are speaking directly to our face! The way we [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 5th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Paul and His Letters, Reader’s Questions|

Jesus and His Miracles: Some Interesting Features

In my discussion of whether the historian can deal with the category of miracle, I’m now at the point where I can deal directly with the miracles ascribed to Jesus. This is an issue that I have dealt with in several books, including, most recently, Jesus Before the Gospels. It will take three posts for me to cover the waterfront here. This is how I began dealing with the issue in the book. ************************************************************ The Miracles of Jesus When one discusses the activities and deeds of Jesus, it is very hard indeed to avoid talking about his miracles. Miracles are everywhere in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. He is miraculously born to a woman who has never had sexual relations. From the beginning of his public ministry to the end he does one miracle after the other, conquering nature, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead. So abundantly attested are Jesus’ miracle-working abilities that even scholars who are otherwise skeptical of the supernatural biases of our sources sometimes claim that [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 3rd, 2018|Historical Jesus|

Did the Original Gospels Describe Jesus’ Miracles?

While I'm on the topic of miracles, here's a particularly interesting question I received a long time ago, and my response. QUESTION: I have looked up the content of all the papyri I'm aware of (off of links on wikipedia, so who knows if they're accurate). It is my understanding that although p52, p90, and p104 are dated around 125-150 AD, they contain fragments of John 18 and Matt 21 only, and that it's not until 200 AD that manuscripts emerge which actually contain accounts of supernatural actions by Jesus. So, it's possible that accounts of miracles existed in copies that got destroyed, but is it fair to say that the earliest available copies of accounts of Jesus's supernatural actions date from around 200 AD? In other words, assuming people on average had kids by age 20 back then, and thus 20 years counts as a generation, is it fair to say that the earliest available accounts of miracles by Jesus were written by the great, great, great, great, great, great, grandson of somebody who would have been [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 2nd, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions|

More Free Memberships Available

Thanks to the incredible ongoing generosity of members of the blog, I am happy to announce that there are still a limited number of free one-year memberships available. These have been donated for a single purpose: to allow those who cannot afford the annual membership fee to participate on the blog for a year. I will assign these memberships strictly on the honor system: if you truly cannot afford the membership fee, but very much want to have full access to the blog, then please contact me. Do NOT reply here, on the blog, as a comment. Send me a separate email, privately, at [email protected]. In your email, let me know your situation (why you would like to take advantage of this offer) and provide me with the following information: 1) Your first and last name. 2) Your preferred personal email. 3) Your preferred user name (no spaces). 4) Your preferred password (should be 8 or more characters, no spaces). The donors will remain anonymous, but here let me publicly extend my heartfelt [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00August 1st, 2018|Public Forum|

More on the Historical Problem of Miracles

I continue my reflections on the historical problem of miracles with another "blast from the past": ******************************************************* Yesterday I started to talk about why historians cannot demonstrate that a miracle such as the resurrection happened because doing so requires a set of presuppositions that are not generally shared by historians doing their work. Over the years I’ve thought a lot about this question, and have tried to explain on several occasions why a “miracle” can never be shown, on historical grounds, to have happened -- even if it did. Here is a slightly different way of approaching the matter, as I expressed it in an earlier publication on the historical Jesus: ******************************************************** People today typically think of miracles as supernatural violations of natural law, divine interventions into the natural course of events. Miracles, by definition, are events that contradict the normal workings of nature in such a way as to be virtually beyond belief and to require an acknowledgment that supernatural forces have been at work. This understanding is itself the major stumbling block [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00July 31st, 2018|Reflections and Ruminations|

History is not the Past! Proving Jesus’ Resurrection and Other Miracles

Last week I finished a thread on the criteria scholars use to establish what happened in the life of the historical Jesus. That series of posts raises an important question: what do historians do about the fact that throughout the Gospels Jesus does lots of miracles -- and at the end the greatest miracle of all happens, he is raised from the dead as an immortal being, never to die again? Can such miracles be demonstrated to have happened historically? That's a question I've dealt with on the blog before. Here is the first of a series of posts I made on it from five years ago, in which I make a point about "history" that many people maybe haven't thought of. ************************************************************************************************ Yesterday I started to answer a question from a reader who pointed out that just as the existence of Jesus is multiply attested, so too is Jesus’ resurrection. And so if *one* is established as historical, doesn’t the other one *also* have to be seen as historical? And if one is considered [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00July 30th, 2018|Historical Jesus, Reflections and Ruminations|

My First Taste of Critical Scholarship

In this week’s mailbag I deal with an interesting question about how knowing about a topic is not the same as understanding the scholarship on it. The question begins by quoting something I said on the blog a while back QUESTION: Quoting me: “That’s because serious scholarship is itself hard. It’s not an easy read. It’s not like reading your favorite novel.” Can you recall the first book of serious scholarship that you had to read? Did you think, “Gosh. Maybe this course of study ain’t for me”?! RESPONSE Oh boy do I remember that! It happened my first semester in graduate school at Princeton Theological Seminary. I arrived on campus there pretty confident in my understanding of the Bible and most things connected with it. I had already spent three very intense years doing a diploma in Bible-Theology at Moody Bible Institute and two years at Wheaton College, among other things learning Greek and taking courses on the translation and interpretation of New Testament texts in Greek. I thought my training at [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00July 29th, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Upcoming Speaking Events, Fall 2018

I will be doing several speaking gigs hither and yon in the coming fall. These are the ones that are set in stone, if all goes to plan. All of them are open to the public, but may require tickets. I’ve included websites when I have them. I ope to see some of you at them. I’d like to schedule a blog event at the ones that will be in the States, if possible, probably a lunch or dinner. But I’ll let you know! September 8 Smithsonian Associates, Washington DC Four Great Controversies in Early Christianity https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/four-great-controversies-in-early-christianity Description of Seminar The growth of the Christian church from a tiny sect of Jesus’ close followers to a major world religion was not smooth and seamless. Christians faced controversy on every front—externally with both pagans and Jews and internally with various Christian groups holding diverse theological views struggling for dominance. Bart Ehrman, a leading authority on early Christianity, the New Testament, and the life of Jesus, explores four major controversies encountered by the early Christians, [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00July 27th, 2018|Public Forum|

Did Peter Use a Secretary for his Writings? A Blast from the Past

Looking through some posts of blogs-past I came across this interesting one from six years ago now! I think it's an intriguing question, and the answer is not what most people would probably think. QUESTION: What do you make of the author's reference to a Silvanus in 1 Peter 5:12? Could it be that this really is Peter saying he used a secretary to write this letter? I know you said there is little to no evidence that people used secretaries, but what do you make of this reference to a Silvanus? RESPONSE: Yes, this is a question that I deal with in my book Forged, and that I deal with at yet greater length in the book coming out in the fall, Forgery and Counterforgery. Several points are important to make about the question, but first a bit of background. FOR THE REST OF THIS POST, log in as a Member. Click here for membership options. If you don't belong yet, JOIN!! Background. Scholars have long noted that the book of [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:57-04:00July 26th, 2018|Catholic Epistles, Forgery in Antiquity, Reader’s Questions|

Finishing my Work on the Afterlife

I am now virtually finished with all my research for my book on the afterlife, and after mopping up a few loose ends, I should be able to start writing next week. It’s been a two-year adventure so far. I always find it amazing how much you can learn in two years of intense research on a topic that you already know (or think you know) a good deal about. The way I can check on how much I’ve progressed is by looking at my early notes on the topic. Almost always, when I decide I’m going to write a book, I jot down all my initial ideas of what I want the book to contain, what kinds of insights I want to discuss in it, what direction I want it to go, how I’m viewing the topic at the time. Then, at the end (now!) I look back at what I wrote at the beginning, and I think – this happens every time – Oh my God! I was *so* ignorant and unaware!! That’s [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:56-04:00July 24th, 2018|Book Discussions, Reflections and Ruminations|

Traditions About Jesus that Are Probably Not Historical

I have been arguing that there are ways to extract historical information about Jesus from the Gospels – even if they were not written to provide disinterested accounts of what he really said and did but were meant to promote faith in him. So far I have discussed two positive criteria: independent attestation (if a tradition is found in multiple independent sources then that increases the likelihood that it goes back to the life of Jesus, since none of the sources themselves could have made it up) and dissimilarity (if a tradition contains information that the followers of Jesus would decidedly not have wanted to make up, then it more likely is something that actually happened). Now I move to a negative criterion, one that eliminates possible traditions from consideration as unlikely to be historical (rather than a positive criterion that shows which ones are more likely). It is called the criterion of contextual credibility. Again, this is from my book Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet. ************************************************************ If The Shoe Fits.... The Criterion of Contextual Credibility. You’re [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:40-04:00July 23rd, 2018|Canonical Gospels, Historical Jesus|

How a Book Gets Its Title

As I am getting set to start writing my book on the Afterlife (the plan is to begin the first week of August), I am mulling over possible titles. And just as I have been in the midst of my muddling, I have received this question. QUESTION: Dr, Ehrman, can you explain a little how you go about choosing a title for your trade books ? Is it a collaborative effort between you and your agent or publisher? Can it be a difficult process where the title can change as the book progresses . And if so,, can you give just a couple examples when you had decided on a title (could you name the original title ) and changed the title to the book that finally appeared at our local book store ? RESPONSE: I’ve dealt with this issue on the blog before. Here is what I said about it four years ago, soon after publishing How Jesus Became God. ***************************************************************************** In my previous post I discussed the strategies behind giving [...]

BDEhrman2025-09-10T12:41:40-04:00July 22nd, 2018|Reader’s Questions, Reflections and Ruminations|

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